Axl's Nightmare
by Ariacan Phoenix
Summary: Axl's dreaming again...or is it really a nightmare?


AN: I do not own any of the X characters, blah blah blah, you get the drill.

This fic was inspired by the flash movie F E A R from Newgrounds. Go see it since it is a creepy-ass movie! I personally love the music used in the movie and wish the author would release it already!

Enjoy!

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_Nightmare_

Axl stood in his bathroom brushing his teeth calmly, his deep blue pajamas swaying calmly with each stroke of the brush. After that battle, he felt the need to relax and get in a nice hot shower, then off to bed. He knew he had more training to do in the morning, followed by paperwork. He sighed rather loudly to himself and mused about the almost never-ending stacks of forms, thinking about how X could deal with all the bullshit from the HQ filing department, let alone Zero. That guy would rather terrorize the staff than even put a pen to a single line on those cursed leaflets.

He spit out the foamy toothpaste, rinsing his mouth in the process. As he glanced back into the mirror before him, he could see a flickering white figure watching him from his bedroom. Surprised, Axl spun around to catch the intruder, but found none.

"What the hell?" he questioned, unsure of what he just saw. Was it a ghost? No, it couldn't have been a ghost, those are just fairy tales, right? He instinctively headed for his desk where he kept his guns and open the drawer, only to find...

"A rag doll? What's a doll doing in my drawer? And where are my guns?" Axl said, furrowing his brows, then sighed. "Well, I know I left 'em in here, unless Zero's pulling another one of his stupid pranks again. He's so dead if he has my babies."

Suddenly the area around him flickered a pale white, showing bloodstains on the walls and desk before him for a mere five seconds. This was long enough for a small gasp to escape his lips, his green eyes darting about nervously. In the very corner of his eye, he caught sight of that white figure again, this time in the open door leading to the darkened Hunter halls. Axl, still holding the doll, swallowed hard. Were his eyes tricking him, or did he really see what he just saw? Curiosity got the better of him and he stepped into the hallway, now unconsciously clutching the doll to his chest. His bare feet silently patted the cool tile floor as he took cautious step after step down the hall.

Axl stopped about fifteen feet from his room, feeling that someone was watching him. He looked behind him, not knowing that a pale figure watched him from the window. Those cold, dead eyes boring their way into Axl's sense of security. Sensing that the reploid would turn around again, it disappeared just as quickly as it had arrived, its face still showing no emotion.

Axl quickly turned his attention to the window next to him and glanced out, his heart beating faster than normal. No one was there, his sensors told him, but he still felt watched. Was he going mad? He had a sudden urge to find and talk to Zero, surely he would understand, not to mention find out whether or not he took his precious guns! That bastard!

He continued down the hallway, quickening his pace a little when several pictures on the wall caught his eye. Axl stopped and gazed at them in the dim light, smiling.

"Heh, that was a good day," he commented on one picture of several Hunters, himself in the group, smiling for the camera with a Mechadrake ruffling his hair. Axl contemplated on each picture, until his eyes drew to a photograph he had never seen before. Unbeknownst to him, several ghostly faces watched him from the shadows like hawks, faces contorted with glee and horror.

'_When did this get here?'_ he thought to himself. It was a photograph of X, Zero, and Alia, though none of them were smiling, and all were looking directly at the camera. Their eyes looked blank, if not a little hallowed in. From under the dim light, he could tell that this had to be a recent picture. But before he could get a more detailed look, a shadow passed in front of his eyes, and a second glance revealed that the picture had changed. Not only was the glass cracked and broken, but the reploid's eyes in the photo had changed as well, going from a blank stare to red, demonic eyes that were crying deep shades of crimson blood.

Axl was taken aback, then looked at the photo again. The three pairs of eyes shifted their glance unto his eyes, now grinning devilishly. Before he could say anything else, he felt something stroke his chin.

Something soft as cotton, and by the way it rippled like that, almost fleshy.

Axl, in response, glanced down, only to have small, beady eyes look back up at him. A toothy smile had now crossed its now alive face, tears of blood running down its cloth cheeks, while a small stream of blood had seeped from its mouth. Small fingers had now formed where there were none before, stubby and small. The very doll that he had taken from his drawer, once an inanimate piece of cotton and other materials sewn together to shape a crude human being, was now alive, just like him.

It was reaching out to Axl's face with a shaky 'hand', determined to do whatever it wanted. Startled and horrified, the young reploid threw down the rag doll and sprinted for Zero's room. He arrived to find the door already open, but that fact didn't concern him at all. Axl reached the blonde hunter's bed and shook the sheet-covered body that lay on the mattress.

"Zero! Zero! For the love of God, wake up!" Axl cried in a loud whisper. He was greeted by Zero rolling over, removing the sheets, and smiling as though he were wide awake. But something wasn't right. His eyes were wide open, almost fixated on the intruder, and it wasn't until that Zero stood up that Axl noticed the blood streaming down from his lips and onto his nightshirt, staining it thoroughly. Axl began to back away as Zero slowly moved in, hands at the ready to make a clean kill.

"Z-Zero? What's wrong? S-stop it, y-you're starting to freak me out, man!" Axl stuttered nervously. Why was his friend acting so weird? And more importantly, why did his friend have the look of death in his eyes?

Thoroughly frightened, Axl fled the room and forcefully closed the door behind him, with Zero just seconds away. He heard a loud THUNK!! on the metal door, followed by a sickening CRUNCH! By now Axl's heart was ready to burst its way out of his chest, and he reflexively clutched it, breathing hard. He felt something warm begin to pool around his feet, and looking down saw that blood had began to seep its way from under the door. This did not help our orange-haired friend calm down the least bit.

He was almost ready to run again when something down the hall caught his eye. A shadowy figure stood down the way he came, the darkness hiding almost all detail. Rubbing his tired eyes, he looked again, this time bringing the figure within a few feet of his face, looking eerily familiar.

Axl could see Cinnamon standing before him, holding up the doll he had discarded less than a minute ago. Fresh blood streamed from a large gash in the side of her head, exposing vulnerable and vital circuitry, but that didn't seem to bother her not one single bit. Tears of blood flowed down her paled cheeks, a frown of sorrow adorning her features. From what he could guess, all of that blood loss should have killed her, if not at the very least disabling her.

"Why don't you like him, Axl?" she said coldly, stepping closer to the boy and pushing the doll to his face. "All we wanted to do was to play with you. Come play with us, Axl..." Her eyes reflected nothing as though she were dead, so much that it sent nasty chills down his spine. He instinctively shoved her and the doll to the floor and fled down another hall in almost blind panic. His heart was pumping his blood full of synthetic adrenaline, giving him the energy to bolt down the hallway quickly.

He was about ten seconds down the hallway when another figure out of the corner of his eye grabbed his attention, causing him to skid to a stop and breathing hard. Axl instantly recognized the figure, relieved that it was...

"X! Oh God am I glad to see you! Zero's gone nuts, and something's happened to Cinnamon!" he said, happier than a lost child to find its mother, and jogged toward him down the intersection of halls. As he got closer to the Maverick Hunter, he realized that something was wrong. X wasn't reacting to what Axl was doing or saying at all. He brought himself to a halt just ten feet away from his friend.

"X? X!! Please don't tell me there's something wrong with you too!!" he pleaded, tears beginning to well up in his eyes.

Light began to flicker on and off, showing why X didn't react at all. Several large metal spikes had penetrated his synthetic skin, blood flowing freely down to the floor. X's face was frozen in a macabre grin, eyes wide open and trickles of blood from his hair teasing his chin. His body would twitch and convulse, and was slumped to one side as if he were being hung by the neck from an invisible rope.

Stunned, Axl fell to his knees as he looked at his dead friend, and began to sob.

'_Oh God...oh God...what's going on?!' _he thought, heart beating with dread. His surroundings seemed to move backward, forcing his sensors to full alert.

"What?" was all he could say before something forcefully pulled him back the way he came, pinning him to the wall just a few feet off the ground. Axl struggled to free himself, but found whatever the force was, it was just too strong to resist. He took a glance down the hallway where he had just been, only to find a terrifying sight to greet him.

The spikes had freed themselves from X's body and were now sailing in the air down the hall, seeking a new home to plant themselves in.

Seeking his own warm syntheflesh.

Axl's heart raced faster than before, sensing impending death in the form of flying metal, and his eyes grew wide with fear. He wanted to close his eyes and hope those things would be gone by the time he opened them again, but the sheer terror kept them wide and tearful.

THNK! THNK! THNK! THNK! THNK! THNK! THNK! THNK!

If reploids could crap their pants, Axl would have done that seconds ago. The nails had came so close to their intended mark, but only succeeded in outlining his body, the closest one coming just inches from his head. With the nails so damn close, he could see just how big these suckers were: two feet long and three inches in diameter was his logic board's estimate. Realizing that he was no longer pinned down, he bolted down another hallway leading to the Main Corridor. Hopefully he could find someone normal down there and figure out just what in bloody hell is going on.

'_Jesus Christ! What in God's name is going on here?! Zero and X just tried to kill me, and Cinnamon's just plain gone nuts!'_ he thought, panic running through his mind. _'Am I the only normal reploid around here?! If this is some demented prank, I don't want to be a part of it anymore!'_ Axl was crying from the terrors he had just witnessed, when he smacked into something hard and landed butt-first on the floor. Rubbing his head, he looked up, and saw familiar green armor.

"Ma...Ma...Massimo!" Axl cried out. "Boy am I glad to see you!" The young reploid stood up, knowing that Massimo was a good guy. "Man, you wouldn't believe this, but Zero's gone Maverick, X is dead, and Cinnamon's---? Ma...Massimo? W-what are you doing?!"

Massimo stood there silently as he raised his Massive Lance and tried to bring it down on Axl's head. The orange-headed reploid dodged the attack, and ran around him.

"Massimo! What the hell are you doing?!" Axl cried out and dodged another one of the massive reploid's swings, then a few more. Deciding that fighting him unarmed was no way to go, Axl dodged Massimo's last swing and fled further down the hall, reaching the stairs. Moving his feet quicker than he could remember, he arrived at the foot of the stairs in just a few minutes instead of the normal hour.

Almost out of breath, he stopped and looked around. The HQ doors were closed for the night, and most certainly were locked tight if Alia wasn't up. After spending a minute to catch his breath, he walked over to the doors and tried all of them.

Dammit! Locked!

'_There's no way I can break the doors open,'_ he thought,_ 'all of these doors are made with shatterproof glass, and...'_

He felt someone watching him again, and spun around, this time seeing another familiar figure in pink armor and green hair.

"Marino?"

Marino was silent, hovering lifelessly several inches off the floor. Her eyes were open, but gave no hint of any energy nor soul inside. She just hovered there, seemingly waiting for Axl to come closer. He couldn't see her face in the dim lighting, and wearily stepped forward from the doors.

"Are you alright, Marino? Please tell me that you're normal!"

"Of course I'm alright, Axl," she smiled coldly in the dim light, "I'm just fine." She clutched her beam knife behind her back, and beckoned Axl to come closer still. He took a few steps forward when she chuckled eerily, alerting him that something was wrong.

"Marino?"

"Run, run my dear child," the ex-thief cackled, quickly closing in on her new prey, beam knife raised above her head, "Run as fast as you can! Eee hee hee!"

Axl instinctively dodged the attack and ran for the closest door.

INFIRMARY read the sign. Seconds felt like an eternity as he opened the door, Marino hot on his heels, her face still plastered with a murderous grin. As he slammed it shut, he could feel the strength of the pink reploid trying to push open the metal door. He fumbled with the key codes before he successfully locked the door behind him, Marino still pounding insanely away to reach her victim.

Axl's pulse and breathing slowed down a bit, trying to relax and contemplate a solution to his situation. He sat down on one of the med beds, feeling the mattress sink with his weight.

About twenty minutes later, the pounding stopped, much to his surprise. That didn't change his mind about unlocking the door, though. Axl was way too scared out of his mind to open the door to see what happened, let alone get up from the bed. He grabbed the sheets and threw it over himself, naively believing that it would somehow protect him from the horrors that followed him tonight.

That thought quickly changed when he felt something caress his arm, bolting him into an upright position to see who just touched him in an empty room. His heart was pounding.

Nothing.

The sound of someone's heavy breathing by his ear seized all of his attention and turned to see who was so bloody close to him. He couldn't believe his eyes as to what he saw next to him.

Whatever this thing was, it looked just like him. Darkened skin and a devilish smile accompanied a blood-soaked mouth and wicked-looking teeth. It was staring right back at him, eyes wide open and bloody tears streaking its cheeks. Axl could see those beady pools for pupils boring themselves into the very depths of his soul, and felt paralyzed by its gaze. He struggled to back away from this unknown entity, only to find that he could no longer move.

"Oh God, oh God, oh God, oh God," was all Axl could whisper as he felt his eyes well up with tears of horror. The doppelganger, in response to Axl's fear, smiled and grabbed the reploid in a vice-like grip. It licked his face, almost testing his sytheflesh before moving down to the neck.

"Please, get...away from me..." Axl struggled with his words, feeling the growing pain from the creature's grip. It only snarled sinisterly in response.

It pulled back and gazed into Axl's green eyes for one last time before the largest grin drew upon its face, chuckling deeply. The young reploid felt fear and dread seep into every last circuit of his body as the creature cocked itself for something.

"No...no...please don't..." he pleaded, unable to move.

The creature grinned sadistically before lunging at his throat, teeth barred and blood streaming into the surrounding air.

"AAH!" Axl cried out, sitting upright in his own bed. Beads of sweat covered his body, his pulse quick and breathing hard. His eyes darted about their surroundings before he could recognize his own room.

'_Was that just...a dream?'_ he thought, wiping the sweat from his brow.

Light began to pour its way into Axl's room as his bedroom door creaked open, revealing a silhouette of Zero. Dread and terror began to fill Axl's heart again for no apparent reason as he pulled his sheets about himself, backing himself against the headboard of his bed.

"Oh Axl! Come out, come out wherever you are!" Zero cooed, unfriendly eyes seeking him out.

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The beeping sound of the heart monitor broke the silence between three reploids in the medical ward.

"From what we've found out so far," said the head medic, "Axl's system was infected by a virus that causes a comatose-like state. While we don't know the origins or the purpose of it, we do know that it's not fatal. It produces, well, a VR program that causes the victim to believe that he or she is awake when in fact they are simply 'dreaming'. We're unsure at this time if serious damage has been already done to him. For now, though, we'll just simply call this the VRD virus."

"Has a vaccine been developed yet?" inquired X.

"In two more days time, we'll be finished with the coding and be able to administer it to Axl. Please be patient."

"Thank you."

"Not a problem. Now, if you'll excuse me..." the reploid's white lab coat fluttered in the air as he turned and left the room, leaving X and Zero alone with the unconscious Axl. X cast his gaze back onto the sleeping reploid in the medpod, sighing.

"It's been three days now, kid," he said. "Why'd you push me out of the way? That should be me there, not you."

"X, all we can do now is wait. Let the docs do their thing and everything will be back to normal," comforted Zero. He put a hand on X's shoulder, signaling that they should leave. X nodded in response, and followed behind his friend out the door.

_'Don't die on me, Axl,'_ X thought, taking one last look at the orange-haired reploid, still sleeping in the medpod,_ 'don't let any of us down after all we've been through.'_

If only they knew what kind of nightmare, that kind of psychological suffering, that Axl was having.

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So what do you guys think? I know it's long, but I really wanted to go all out on this, capturing the emotion I saw in the movie F E A R as best I could. Flames will be laughed at.


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